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Usher Nonsense Vol. 2, No. 29
AFTER ASHLEY, By Gina Gionfriddo, Directed by Terry Kinney
With Kieran Culkin, Dana Eskelson, Tim Hopper, Anna Paquin, Mark Rosenthal, Grant Shaud
Set Design - Neil Patel, (OK - he's EVERYWHERE) Costume Design - Laura Bauer, Lighting Design -
David Lander
At the VineyardTheatre, East 15th Street, through April 3
Before the after part of Ashley’s life, we meet her in her living room with her son. She is 35. He is
15. Ashley is on a roll, wondering about life, her part in it, sex – her and her son’s – her marriage and
her destiny. Or maybe it’s ADD. She blurts out statements like “getting pregnant was the worst thing
that ever happened to me” and when her son recoils – she leaps after him saying, ‘I don’t mean YOU.
You are the best thing that ever happened to me.”
It would have been interesting to follow this woman into her future, but her life and her time on stage
is cut short – hence the term “After Ashley.” I liked this piece in spite of her absence. The writer has
a sense of the odd parts of life: how we end up living in different places; what draws us to one
another; the journey of selling out vs. taking advantage of life’s opportunities.
After Ashley’s demise we follow her son and husband as they try to piece their lives together. As
written,, the father is pretty woosie and sells out to become a reality TV host. His son is a reactionary
who thinks that a world where entertainment means watching people eat live scorpions or leap into
tubs of snakes could use a little shame. His mother’s death could use a little shame, a little silence.
But instead it is turned into a media campaign that this son will take on in battle.
The performances are smooth and the evening is uncomfortable in all the ways the author intends. It
is refreshing to see someone under 20 complaining about life in substantive ways and making choices
that, whether you agree with them or not, rest on principle and thought.
The only odd part about this piece was that the play covers four plus years and no one, especially the
son who starts out at 15, changes one little bit. After Ashley died time was forgotten, and it shouldn’t
have been.
©2005 by Tulis McCall